In the living room of his Armonk home, entrepreneur Seth Tokson set what resembled a Lazy Susan tray on the carpet.

“This is a scent discrimination wheel,” he said. Its covered trays held materials found in households: foam rubber, wood molding, blanket fibers, common insects, dog food. One held living samples of that pest du jour, the bedbug.

Tokson brought out Trace, a young mixed-breed dog rescued from a Florida animal shelter. On a leash, Trace followed Tokson”™s command and sniffed while circling the wheel. She quickly alerted on the bedbug container.

“I”™ve probably done this 20,000 times in a year,” Tokson said. “She”™s never missed it ”“ never.” He rewarded the dog with a food treat from his gloved hand.

Trace is the sole employee at Top Dog Scent Detection Inc., the business started this year by Tokson and his wife, Marcia, both certified dog handlers. A graduate of the Florida Canine Academy in Safety Harbor, Fla., Trace is trained to find bedbugs in their many hiding places with pinpoint accuracy.

“We”™re working everywhere from lower Manhattan to Newburgh,” Tokson said. Their clients include elementary schools and colleges, hospitals, apartment buildings, co-ops and condos and commercial properties that include hotels, retail stores, movie theaters and dry cleaners. “We do a lot of work for the housing authorities” in the region, he said. “Property management companies call us.”¦ Right now, in most cases the call we get is a reactive call. Someone has the problem.”

Tokson and Trace also do preventive inspections for bug-wary travelers returning home. “People who”™ve had them before will pay us to come and inspect their luggage before they bring it in the house,” he said. Some owners request inspections of their homes on the advice of employers who have found the bugs in their office buildings, he said.

To avoid conflicts of interest, Top Dog does targeted inspections only and does not perform bedbug treatments. Though many pest control companies use dogs in their business, Tokson said, “I want to be independent of the actual financial gain of finding them” and being paid by clients to eradicate them. Instead the Toksons refer clients to pest control companies for treatment.
Inspection fees average $375 for a private three-bedroom home. For apartment complexes, Top Dog”™s fees range from $20 to $40 per unit.

The former owner of a pest control company in Westchester that he sold in 2005 to Westtex Pest Management in North White Plains, Tokson can remember his first working encounter with a bedbug. That was about 12 years ago. “It was in a rooming house,” he said. “For years the problem was very sporadic. Around 2005 or 2006, the problem exploded in this area.” Battling bedbugs “became almost another business” in itself, he said.

“I”™ve been in the pest control business for 30 years and this is unlike anything I”™ve dealt with in my lifetime,” Tokson said. “If things continue to do what they are doing, I can see having a second dog in the next six months to a year.”

For Trace, the training in bedbug detection is as daily as eating. Tokson feeds her only by hand and only after she alerts on the scent of live bedbug nymphs, adults and viable eggs. Dead ones she ignores.

Tokson keeps vials of bedbugs in a home office. “I”™ll call my friends and say, ”˜Can I come to your house and hide some bugs?”™” Trace needs variety in her line of work.

 

Business travel tips

Seth Tokson, co-owner of Top Dog Scent Detection Inc. in Armonk, recommends these steps for bedbug-free travel:

• When making your reservation, ask the hotel what they do to prevent the spread of bed bugs.
• Inspect your hotel room before unpacking.
• Look around the headboard and mattresses for evidence of spotting or actual bed bugs.
• Check night table and dresser drawers.
• Bring a large, black plastic bag when traveling. When packing to come home, put all of your clothes in this bag inside your suitcase.
• Keep toiletries in a sealed and zipped plastic bag when not using them.
• Arriving home, leave your suitcase outside. Take out the plastic bag and immediately run your clothes through the dryer.
• Inspect your luggage for any evidence of bed bugs or have a dog with a trained nose for bedbugs inspect suitcases before bringing them in the house.